Thief
by angel-unknown
Summary: Annie Hadley is a thief by occupation. It's just her thing. So when she's presented with the opportunity to rip off Eric Northman, she takes it. Of course, this has some interesting effects. Eric/OC See note inside


**Hello, everyone. Angel here. Now, I'm listing this under True Blood because it seems like no one posts for the "Southern Vampire Mysteries." So, even though I like the books better and will be using the book's plot line, this is going to be in the Show's category. So if the plot seems off in some major way, it's because it's coming from the books and not the show. FYI. Review please?**

Eric Northman was tall. He could see over the heads over most of the patrons of his bar, Fangtasia, which gave him the ability to easily scan the crowd, looking for something interesting. Out on the dance floor there was the typical mix of vampires and fang-bangers in their ridiculous costumes. The environment of the club was one big symbiotic relationship: The vampires would do anything to get a taste of human blood, and the fang-bangers would do anything to let them. It was all fine and dandy, as long as they were discreet. The last thing he needed was another raid. The contractor – whom Eric was currently paying to sit on a chair and do virtually nothing for hours -- had a look on his face. This look was something Eric knew to be horrendous boredom, though any of the human tourists would have thought him brooding, and the fang-bangers wouldn't have even been looking at his face in the first place. That is, unless it was to see his teeth.

Eric was almost as bored as the contractor, even though it was his bar and he should have something businesslike occupying his time. He'd had enough of bills and paperwork for one night. He sauntered over to the bar, trying to look inconspicuous, hoping to avoid the notice of any horny, vampire-obsessed humans that might be looking. At the bar, he found the something interesting he'd been waiting for. She was a twenty-something mortal girl, and she looked nothing like the rest of the human patrons in the building. Her dark brown curls looped a frame around her face, and she wore no makeup except for a swath of ruby-red (not really blood red, Eric noticed, since with his sight, he could tell the difference) lipstick. Instead of the wannabe-Gothic getups Eric was used to seeing on fang-bangers, she wore a dress that went down to her knees and looked like it had been made from a pillow case. Not only was the dress long sleeved, she was also wearing tights. Eric wondered if he'd ever seen anyone exposing less skin in the entire time he'd owned Fangtasia. There was something remarkably different about her, even aside from her clothes. He realized it was that she didn't seem even remotely interested in anything or anyone around her. Well, _that _was certainly unique around here. He sat down on the stool next to her, and she didn't even glance his way. He leaned a little closer, trying to catch her attention. This one looked like she'd been fun to play with. Except that she didn't even blink in his direction. She just stared into the clear depths of her drink- straight vodka, Eric noted- without looking up or even sipping it. Completely oblivious to the particularly loud world around her.

Eric considered telling her some of the dirtiest pick-up lines he knew, just to see if they would garner a response. He decided against that plan, opting for a slightly more polite, certainly more direct approach. "What are you doing here?" he asked her.

She turned her head, taking her time. "Good question."

"Good enough that it needs an answer, I think."

"I don't know…" she answered. "Curiosity, maybe. Boredom."

"You came into a vampire bar simply because you were bored?" he asked.

"Curious. I wondered what it was like inside. It has fallen perfectly within my range of expectations. I mean, what else could anyone expect from that lot?" she asked, waving her hand in the direction of the dance floor.

"Does that include me?" Eric asked.

"I don't know, does it?"

Her response left Eric unsure of whether or not his flirtation was successful. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Anastasia," she said. Then as if changing her mind, "Annie, really."

"Fascinating," whispered Eric in a tone that was just loud enough for her to hear.

She snorted. "Right. Of course it is. And you are?"

"Eric," he said, satisfied at the way this was going.

"_Fascinating,_" she mocked.

"Are you going to finish that?" he asked, indicating her glass. She shrugged before shaking her head no. "Then come with me." He took her arm.

"If you take me to that dance-floor, I swear you'll have three seconds before I start screaming."

Eric started steering her toward the back instead, towards his office.

"Ah, no-no-no-no. I don't think so," she scolded.

"Relax, I just want to talk."

"Right. And I'm the tooth fairy."

"Trust me."

"Are you serious?"

"If you don't expect vampires to behave themselves, why did you even come here?" The girl, Annie, had wounded his pride, something no vampire was fond of, being generally prouder than humans.

"Maybe I was looking for a little danger," she huffed.

"Then why so reluctant to get a taste of the real thing?"

"Taste? Ha! I knew it. I'm leaving…"

"No, you're not. I give you my word, I will do nothing but talk, if that's what you wish. And if you don't think I'll hold to that, then you're even more naïve than I thought." He clutched her arm tighter and led her farther back until they were standing at his office door. She was tense; he could feel her muscles tighten.

"Wait, this is yours?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Oh." She seemed to trust him a little more. Perhaps she understood that he wouldn't risk losing his bar by biting her. Maybe she just trusted people who were in charge more than others… though she didn't strike him as the type. She still fidgeted. "So… Why do you want to talk to me so much?"

Eric was momentarily at a loss for words. He thought it over, and realized that he didn't know the answer. "You seem different than the others. It's refreshing," he said, finally. That was as close of an answer as either of them were going to get anytime soon.

"What do you want to talk about?" she plopped down in the boss's chair, which, by rights, should have been Eric's. He remained standing, not wanting to degrade himself to sitting in the small chair across the desk from her. He would not act as inferior to a human, not matter how petty the gesture. She spoke again. "The weather sure has been warm."

"It's summer. How did you come to be in Shreveport? You don't sound like you're from around here."

"I inherited the house from my Maw-Maw," she replied. "I didn't really have much of a place in Asheville, so I came here."

Eric smirked at the sound of such a Southern-sounding term of endearment out of the mouth of this obvious Northerner. "North Carolina, Asheville?"

"The same. It was nice there, but here's nice too, I suppose."

"What kind of food do you like?"

"What?"

"You heard me. I haven't eaten human food in over a thousand years. I'm curious, to put it simply." The terminology was only a little bit teasing.

"I like…um. American food? Like cheeseburgers and stuff, I guess. I haven't thought about that in years."

"Describe the way a cheeseburger tastes," ordered Eric.

"You could at least ask…"

"You could just tell me."

"How am I supposed to describe that to someone who's never had one before? Give me a second." She thought about it, and Eric marveled at the fact that she hadn't walked out yet. She spun the chair in four circles before she began talking again. "The patty itself is, when you get it done right, a kind of earthy meaty taste. More robust than chicken and fish, but there's not a ton of spices so it's not strong, but it's definitely not bland. The cheese is melted all over the top of that. It's milky and has a little twang, kind of like a guitar string plucked too far from the neck? You know? And…"

She continued talking, and Eric kept asking questions. His questions were all as pointless as the first. For a second, he almost wished he was human, for everything she spoke of to him. But then he stopped himself, and thought himself silly. Human again? Disgusting. To vampires, humans were nothing by edible sex-toys. Annie had finished talking, and he caught her glancing down at his chest, which was just shown under the partially opened shirt. Aha, he thought; perhaps this Annie girl wasn't as chaste as he'd originally thought. This pleased him greatly, stoking the already high flames of his ego into a bonfire.

"I… I think I should go now." She stood dizzily, wobbling a little after the nearly incessant spinning in the chair. Eric, who had remained standing the entire time they were in his office, was there to steady her. He took this opportunity to put his arms around her. He couldn't have planned it better, himself. She tilted her head back and let him kiss her. This was something he was a master at. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and she certainly didn't seem to mind. Her hands went up to his neck, then back down to his chest. The movement felt strange to him, for some reason, like something was out of place. It didn't really bother him, though. He was getting what he wanted. At least, that's what he thought. She pulled back, with one finger on his lips. She smiled. "You're wearing lipstick," she told him, before she stepped around him and right out the door. Eric stood there, rubbing his mouth to get her lipstick off, hardly believing the sudden direction this had taken. No one had ever walked out on him like that. Ever.

Annie Hadley walked out the front door of Fangtasia completely satisfied with her work. She fingered the thin chain in her palm. Talk, indeed.

When Eric walked out of his office and back into the crowded main room, he was immediately accosted by Long Shadow, one of his vampire staff-members. "Why'd you let such a pretty one go?" he asked.

There was no way Eric was letting anyone know what had happened. "Because I could," he replied indifferently. "There's plenty more where that came from, though."

"Hey, boss," Long Shadow noticed. "Weren't you wearing a pendant earlier?"

It was a good forty-eight hours before Annie saw Eric again. For her, this was not _nearly _long enough. It was around eleven pm that he caught her, completely unawares. She was standing on the porch of her late-grandmother's house, fumbling with the key. The lock, in light, would show a spider web of scratches around the keyhole from other nights like this one, when Annie was too tired and had kept missing the hole with the key. Metal on metal left its mark. She was stabbing at the lock one last time when she became acutely aware of a presence behind her. She whipped around and came face to face with Eric Northman.

"Did you really think…" he said, advancing on her, "that you could steal from a vampire and just _walk_? Do you think that's how it works?"

Annie glanced from side to side, searching for an escape. She was well aware that there was no such thing. Even if she wasn't surrounded by a wall and a ring of sturdy porch railing, there'd be no way to outrun a vampire. And he kept coming closer.

"I could easily kill you for this," he said.

What had she been thinking? She knew that it was a bad idea to begin with, but the idea of ripping off a vampire had been tantalizing, much to tempting to resist. His hands circled her wrists, and she might as well have been wearing shackles of granite. She was completely pinned to the front of the house. She could feel the weight of him, pressed against her, and felt his teeth when he lowered his face to her neck. His fangs grazed her skin just over her racing pulse. Annie shivered, though whether it was out of fear or something else, she had no idea. This seemed to give him a moment's pause, though that could have simply been trying to torment her further. It worked. And then he bit down… around the chain of the pendant she wore around her neck. He snapped back from her, taking the necklace with him. "Two can play your game," he said, before he faded out into the night.


End file.
